'Hitchhikers' hilariously hops onto big screen

One night in 1971, Douglas Adams was lying in a field in Innsbruck, Austria staring up at the stars, and pouring over a borrowed copy of a travel book called "Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe." Then the thought occurred to him that someone ought to write a guide for hitchhiking the galaxy. \nSince then, the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" has appeared in many forms. It has been done and redone as a radio program, video game, television show, and of course the prolific five-book trilogy. It has accumulated a cult following of biblical proportions (and God said unto them "We apologize for the inconvenience"). Millions of "Hitchhiker" fans simultaneously exhaled a deep sigh of relief since first time director Garth Jennings didn't mess up the movie that they have been waiting years to see. Maybe that's why it was so windy on Friday ... \nIf you have never heard of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," the plot is quite simple. Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) and his friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) escape Earth just moments before it is destroyed by Vogons. They do some interstellar hitchhiking and find themselves on a stolen ship with Galactic President Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), his girlfriend Trillian (Zooey Deschanel) and a clinically depressed robot named Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman). Together they go on a quest to find the ultimate question to Life, the Universe and Everything ... and some tea for Arthur. Of course I use the term "plot" loosely, since the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is not as much a story as it is a bunch of funny ideas being constantly interrupted by other tangential funny ideas lazily meandering their way toward a bizarre and seemingly pointless end. But it's funny. Very funny. Probably the funniest movie to come out so far this year.\nThe acting is great; particularly by Rockwell, whose performance can best be described by the phrase "what if George W. Bush was a rock star?" Even the smaller roles brought in great performances from Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast, John Malkovich as Humma Kavula, and a brief cameo by Jason Schwartzman as Gag Halfront. The only possible exception was Deschanel, who's flat performance was still not enough to detract from the great effort by the rest of the cast.\nAdams was working on having a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" film produced at the time of his death in 2001. It is a shame that he isn't alive to see how good of a job they did with his script, but this film is a wonderful tribute to one of the funniest authors of all time.